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The rate of technological change is accelerating because technology begets technology. Meanwhile, the rate of growth in wisdom is linear at best (and occasional

The rate of technological change is accelerating because technology begets technology. Meanwhile, the rate of growth in wisdom is linear at best (and occasionally stagnant or in retreat). Frankly, it doesn’t bode all that well.

pavlov 2y ago
Mankind seems to forget every lesson after two generations. Holocaust survivors are still with us, but the kind of nationalism that put them through that ordeal is on the rise again and is gaining popularity with teenagers. Technology could help, but right now it seems to be working the other way.
- retrac 2y ago
  > Technology could help, but right now it seems to be working the other way. If history does teach us anything, the moral ambiguity of technological progress is surely one of the lessons of the 20th century. I think it might be one of those lessons we're forgetting again after a couple generations!
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    Technology isn't morally ambiguous, it is a moral non-player. It would be obviously absurd to call rocks "immoral" because people can be bashed over the head with them. Ultimately there is no 'gun that only shoots bad people' type judgement possible from technology.
    - cma 2y ago
      Instructions for building a box anyone could pit together for $20 in common materials with a button that would end the world would be a fairly unambiguously evil artifact. H-bombs as a much more expensive version that is arguable thanks to the somewhat lasting peace they can be argued to have brought through MAD, but if it had turned out world enders were something anyone could easily throw together it would be a very different world, or non-world.
- throw_pm23 2y ago
  It may be because there are rarely such simplistic rule-based lessons. To your example, nationalism could be a great emancipatory force in one century and an instrument of great suffering in another. If there is some takeaway, then it must be more subtle than "nationalism=evil".
  - pavlov 2y ago
    You’ll notice that I qualified it with “the kind of nationalism that…” I don’t have a problem with the kind of nationalism that gave European minority languages pride in their own culture and literature in the 19th century, for example. I do have a problem with the kind of nationalism exemplified by lots of 20th century European leaders from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Milosevic. The latter kind is sadly on the rise again. And the former isn’t endemic to nationalism. Everyone can have pride in their identity, it doesn’t need a state apparatus.
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      >Everyone can have pride in their identity, it doesn’t need a state apparatus. Well, you'd want to think so. But I wonder if all identities politics doesn't, in the end, trend towards fascism.
      - funcDropShadow 2y ago
        You don't have to wonder. Just observe what is going on in so-called liberal democracies of the world while identity politics is implemented by governments: censorship, redefinition of words, inventing new moral issues to shutdown inconvenient facts and such.
52-6F-62 2y ago
Wisdom doesn’t need to grow, it is eternal. It needs to be learned and accessed. Key to understanding is to work to understand rather than redefine these concepts in the light of the same modernity that gave us domineering technological prowess at all costs.
- meristohm 2y ago
  Yeah, feels like we've largely lost touch with the Wisdom of a reciprocal existence within this ecosystem, the "Garden of Eden" through a Christian lens, or the way the Haudenosaunee Confederacy lived pre-Columbus.
  - 52-6F-62 2y ago
    Indeed. And Pre celts and celts before the Romans. And others. Sorrily muddied through waves of cultural and religious persecution. Pretty universal story that one: One domineering bully culture claiming to be the one true light in the world intent on snuffing out all others. Like reciprocal trauma on a wide scale. Mirrored in this ongoing revenge of the nerds scenario we have now. A poorly perceived high school experience, with limited historical or cultural context, driving massive political and cultural changes across the planet. Artie Ziff on meth and LSD.
- twojacobtwo 2y ago
  > Wisdom doesn’t need to grow This seems to imply that we've gained all the wisdom there is to gain. Do you believe that's true?
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    No, they’re saying that wisdom is something “out there” and our job is to learn it and access it. This implies different people have different levels of access to “the eternal wisdom”, and by extension, one can learn more wisdom.
pithanyChan 2y ago
Top down & middle-out disruption of information flow impedes acceleration of wisdom. Ponzis and lesser people* at work. *those who can't score without harmful sabotage Sparring, cumulative competition, is a thing that drives the evolution of all parties and has the potential to rebalance the scales over and over again, but consumer culture and portfolio capitalism failed to capitalize on that and monetized the opposite instead: envy and sabotage. Some people were too afraid of natural human convection and ruined the game. It still works, of course, but > it doesn't bode all that well.

pavlov 2y ago

Mankind seems to forget every lesson after two generations. Holocaust survivors are still with us, but the kind of nationalism that put them through that ordeal is on the rise again and is gaining popularity with teenagers. Technology could help, but right now it seems to be working the other way.

retrac 2y ago
> Technology could help, but right now it seems to be working the other way. If history does teach us anything, the moral ambiguity of technological progress is surely one of the lessons of the 20th century. I think it might be one of those lessons we're forgetting again after a couple generations!
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  Technology isn't morally ambiguous, it is a moral non-player. It would be obviously absurd to call rocks "immoral" because people can be bashed over the head with them. Ultimately there is no 'gun that only shoots bad people' type judgement possible from technology.
  - cma 2y ago
    Instructions for building a box anyone could pit together for $20 in common materials with a button that would end the world would be a fairly unambiguously evil artifact. H-bombs as a much more expensive version that is arguable thanks to the somewhat lasting peace they can be argued to have brought through MAD, but if it had turned out world enders were something anyone could easily throw together it would be a very different world, or non-world.
throw_pm23 2y ago
It may be because there are rarely such simplistic rule-based lessons. To your example, nationalism could be a great emancipatory force in one century and an instrument of great suffering in another. If there is some takeaway, then it must be more subtle than "nationalism=evil".
- pavlov 2y ago
  You’ll notice that I qualified it with “the kind of nationalism that…” I don’t have a problem with the kind of nationalism that gave European minority languages pride in their own culture and literature in the 19th century, for example. I do have a problem with the kind of nationalism exemplified by lots of 20th century European leaders from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Milosevic. The latter kind is sadly on the rise again. And the former isn’t endemic to nationalism. Everyone can have pride in their identity, it doesn’t need a state apparatus.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    >Everyone can have pride in their identity, it doesn’t need a state apparatus. Well, you'd want to think so. But I wonder if all identities politics doesn't, in the end, trend towards fascism.
    - funcDropShadow 2y ago
      You don't have to wonder. Just observe what is going on in so-called liberal democracies of the world while identity politics is implemented by governments: censorship, redefinition of words, inventing new moral issues to shutdown inconvenient facts and such.

52-6F-62 2y ago

Wisdom doesn’t need to grow, it is eternal. It needs to be learned and accessed. Key to understanding is to work to understand rather than redefine these concepts in the light of the same modernity that gave us domineering technological prowess at all costs.

meristohm 2y ago
Yeah, feels like we've largely lost touch with the Wisdom of a reciprocal existence within this ecosystem, the "Garden of Eden" through a Christian lens, or the way the Haudenosaunee Confederacy lived pre-Columbus.
- 52-6F-62 2y ago
  Indeed. And Pre celts and celts before the Romans. And others. Sorrily muddied through waves of cultural and religious persecution. Pretty universal story that one: One domineering bully culture claiming to be the one true light in the world intent on snuffing out all others. Like reciprocal trauma on a wide scale. Mirrored in this ongoing revenge of the nerds scenario we have now. A poorly perceived high school experience, with limited historical or cultural context, driving massive political and cultural changes across the planet. Artie Ziff on meth and LSD.
twojacobtwo 2y ago
> Wisdom doesn’t need to grow This seems to imply that we've gained all the wisdom there is to gain. Do you believe that's true?
- andsoitis 2y ago
  No, they’re saying that wisdom is something “out there” and our job is to learn it and access it. This implies different people have different levels of access to “the eternal wisdom”, and by extension, one can learn more wisdom.

pithanyChan 2y ago

Top down & middle-out disruption of information flow impedes acceleration of wisdom. Ponzis and lesser people* at work. *those who can't score without harmful sabotage Sparring, cumulative competition, is a thing that drives the evolution of all parties and has the potential to rebalance the scales over and over again, but consumer culture and portfolio capitalism failed to capitalize on that and monetized the opposite instead: envy and sabotage. Some people were too afraid of natural human convection and ruined the game. It still works, of course, but > it doesn't bode all that well.